


No One's Perfect

by spockandawe



Series: For The Life, For The Day, For The Hours [3]
Category: Black Panther (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Erik Killmonger Lives, Gaming, Gen, Military Backstory, Post-Canon, Racism, Rehabilitation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-16
Updated: 2018-03-16
Packaged: 2019-03-31 22:30:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13984668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spockandawe/pseuds/spockandawe
Summary: You don’t rush out first thing in the morning to find the mysterious Americans your cousin mentioned, but you don’t drag your heels either. Would be nice if you had any idea who these other Americans are, just a little something to let you know what to be expect, but Shuri didn’t mention it and like hell you’re going to message her just to ask. It’s probably crusty old white guys. It’salwayscrusty old white guys.Yeah, it’s a bit of a shock when you walk in on a bunch of the Avengers lounging on a sofa playing video games.





	No One's Perfect

You don’t rush out first thing in the morning to find the mysterious Americans your cousin mentioned, but you don’t drag your heels either. You don’t want to look too-too desperate, but it’s not like you have anything else important to be doing. Maybe you waste a little time in the hallways fiddling with the map projection from your kimoyo beads before you try to navigate your way to the part of the building where they apparently stay, but that’s just practical. Planning.

Whatever, you can just bite the bullet and go for it. Besides, Shuri said that’s where the library was, and that’s worth it on its own.

Would be nice if you had any idea _who_ these other Americans are, just a little something to let you know what to be expect, but Shuri didn’t mention it and like hell you’re going to message her just to ask. It’s probably crusty old white guys. It’s _always_ crusty old white guys.

Yeah, it’s a bit of a shock when you walk in on a bunch of the Avengers lounging on a sofa playing video games.

It takes a moment to be sure that yes, you’re really seeing this, this isn’t just some crazy dream you made up. That’s Captain America, Captain _fucking_ America, international fugitive— And here he is, just chilling in Wakanda and playing Mario Kart. _Losing_ at Mario Kart.

Christ, that’s a straight-up Nintendo-64 plugged into the wall beneath one of those fancy embedded screens. Are you _sure_ this isn’t some kind of weird-ass hallucination? You almost turn on your heel and leave, but you’re too slow, and one of them—that’s _Hawkeye_ , right here in this room with you—looks up and spots you first.

No lie, you really, _really_ seriously consider copying everyone you’ve been dealing with the last few days and pretending like you don’t speak English.

But that’s no good either, as the other people in the room turn and spot you, and you can feel every one of them giving you a once-over, face to body to face, and you try not to grimace as you remember the definitely-not-Wakandan wardrobe your cousin was gracious enough to provide. Thanks, T’Challa, really appreciate it, another well-considered favor for the record books.

Fuck it, whatever. You’ll own what you have to work with, and so you stroll further forward into the room, casual and relaxed like this is all completely normal. This isn’t even all the Avengers anyways, not even all the ones that went off the grid after the Sokovia Accords. This is just four of them. Captain America and Hawkeye. Judging by that arm, the other one’s the Winter Soldier. And the fourth—

Goddammit, you should have just made a break for it when you had the chance. You don’t quite stumble, but your pace stutters for just a moment. How the _hell_ are you running into someone you know while you’re locked up in Wakanda after a failed coup? Seriously, how is this actually happening. Maybe you could still run. It would be embarrassing, but would it be _less_ embarrassing? It really might be.

Too late now. You keep your body language as relaxed as you can. Just bluff your way through, act confident and it’ll work. Besides, makes sense that you’d remember the pararescue who saved your ass back in the day, and it makes even more sense that you’d remember him since he graduated to straight-up superhero work. But you’re sure he’s dealt with plenty of soldiers, and there’s no reason he oughta remember you out of everyone else he’s probably worked with before and since.

So you play it all casual and unconcerned, nod at the group, and just say, “’Sup?”

Falcon sits back in the sofa, crosses his arms, and grins. “Man, long time no see. What’s a nice guy like you doing in a place like this?”

_Fuck. Fuck shit goddammit._

You don’t even get a chance trying to figure out how to deal with that before everyone else is already turning to him and asking to hear the story. Or you guess the Winter Soldier isn’t, but two out of three isn’t exactly making you happy anyways. If you ever had any hope of controlling the rhythm of this meeting, it’s all gone now.

Sam Wilson doesn’t say a word, and it’d be easier to get a grip on what he’s after if he looked smug, _something,_ but he’s just smiling faintly as he looks at you and lifts his eyebrows. You give up and just… shrug, like it doesn’t matter.

Wilson leans back again, grinning more widely “All right, okay. Would’ve been… what, maybe a decade back? My second tour, so that’s about right. Out in Afghanistan. This guy—” He jerks his head at you. “He was on a helicopter that got brought down in the mountains, some nasty weather rolling in, so they sent me and Riley out ahead to get someone on the scene as fast as possible.”

The others nod, but Hawkeye looks suspicious. “Can’t have been that easy.”

“Nothing ever is.” Wilson sighs. “Started off fine, until we got shot out of the sky, you know how that goes. Whoever went after the helicopter stuck around to see what happened next and saw a target of opportunity. Riley went down a couple valleys before I did, I got close enough I could spot the wreckage.”

Captain America shifts in his seat and looks at him. “Riley. That wasn’t—”

Wilson laughs, but you’re watching his face and you can see the strain in it. “Nah, he was fine, just pissed.”

He was fine _that_ time _,_ you fill in. You feel a little viciously glad you’re not the only one here cornered in an uncomfortable conversation, but you feel a whole lot worse reacting like that to a dead soldier. You keep your face blank, and he goes on with the story.

“I was doing okay, made my way in closer on foot—”

“With a dislocated shoulder,” you interrupt.

“Hey, hey,” he says, pressing a hand to his chest. “I said okay, not _great._ You’re going to throw off my dramatic timing. And last I checked, you don’t need shoulders to walk.”

He makes a point of turning back to the others. “So there I was, dislocated shoulder, heroically staggering over the mountain terrain—is that better?” He looks at you, and you shrug. You’re not going to take that bait in any direction, thanks. “Staggering over the mountain terrain, right, when I see this kid right here, thrown free of the copter, conscious, but concussed to hell and back. And how many pieces was your leg in again?”

You shrug. You’re shrugging too often. “They stop counting after five or six.”

“They stop counting after five or six. There you go. I confirm there’s no other survivors and try to call back to the base for pickup, but in the mountains… never know when you’re going to get a decent signal out there, and of course there’s no reason for things to start going _right_ at that point in the day. Plus the storm was going to hit any minute, so I managed to get him on my good shoulder and got his bad leg off the ground, and he wasn’t quite dizzy enough to take us both out before I was able to find a little shelter.”

Sure, but you’re pretty positive he sprained his back on his way down too, at a bare minimum, plus you had cracked ribs and one hand almost as broken as your leg. And some lacerations that could’ve left you bleeding out if they’d been just a little bit deeper. He knows this shit, he did the first aid, he visited you in the goddamn hospital, why is he underplaying the whole thing like this, you don’t understand his _angle._

He’s still watching you with an expression you can’t quite read, but his mouth twitches into a wry smile. “Gotta tell you, it’s an experience and a half spending the night with this guy, when he’s having trouble even remembering what his name is but he’s happy to lecture you about the effect of delayed treatment for all sorts of injuries and telling you all about the state of modern reconstructive medical science.”

You… _don’t_ shrug again, but only because you stop yourself from doing it. “I like to keep up with current events.”

Wilson snorts. “Current events. There I am, telling him that it hasn’t even been a full day and they’ll be able to get search and rescue out to us once the storm blows over, and he’ll nod and then start talking on about bone fractures and what complications can lead to amputation and breaking down all these experimental prosthetic designs that aren’t even on the open market yet.”

Christ, this is unfair. You don’t even remember what you were talking about back then, it was years ago and you were _concussed._ Instead of saying that, though, you make a point of looking the Winter Soldier’s arm up and down. It’s different than the pictures you’ve seen online, and you’d love to get a better look at how it’s pieced together, but this is just to see if any of them react. “Prosthetics research counts as current events.”

From the corner of your eye, you can see Captain America frown, but the Winter Soldier snorts in a way that’s almost a laugh.

And off to the side, Mario Kart is still up on the fancy embedded Wakandan screen, with a Nintendo 64 sitting there on the floor. You can’t deal with this right now.

But then— Jesus, the Winter Soldier isn’t ignoring the conversation because he’s playing things like a can’t-be-bothered hardass. He’s still _driving._ Nobody hit pause, and the Winter Soldier is playing Mario Kart, putting along like a grandma. He’s playing Wario. You aren’t drunk enough to be dealing with this.

And that’s not even the worst of it. Wilson and Hawkeye are holding their controllers and not doing anything with them, like regular, normal people. Unlike one Captain Steve Rogers, who must be holding the A button, because he accelerates gently off the edge of rainbow road. And does it again. And again. You drag your eyes back to the couch and keep them locked on the Avengers, but it’s still happening right there on the edge of your vision and you can’t un-notice it.

You’ve missed a chunk of conversation too. Wilson is just saying, “—got an airlift and some real treatment, maybe thirty hours tops from the helicopter going down to us getting pulled out.” He looks your way again and raises his eyebrows. “Sound about right to you?”

Did he notice you watching the screen? Did he slip something in there when you weren’t listening, make some kind of bluff you need to call out? What would he even be saying? You don’t know, not when you still have no idea what he’s even after. Your answer is a hair late, and you wince, but you manage, “Sure.”

Before that conversation can get any more awkward, the Winter Soldier announces, “I won,” and you let yourself relax as the attention moves away from you and they snatch up their controllers again. Hawkeye is cracking up so hard it sends his car off the road, and Wilson is trying to explain video game etiquette, and doing a shit job of it because he’s struggling so hard not to laugh. Captain America is grinning too, but it slips into a frown of concentration as he watches the race, leaning in towards the screen.

Honestly, he’s still falling off the road almost as much as he was before.

Captain America is playing as _Toad,_ this is one of the most surreal things you’ve ever seen.

It’s not long until Wilson finishes and Hawkeye isn’t far behind him. The Winter Soldier is leaning back in the couch with his arms crossed, grinning, and Wilson puts on his disappointed face and shakes his head at him, though his mouth keeps twitching into a smile. Rogers sighs, but he doesn’t look unhappy.

Wilson glances up at you as he picks a new map. He selects Luigi raceway, nice and easy. “We’re teaching them to play video games.”

“It’s a work in progress,” Hawkeye adds.

“Right,” you say, though your voice sounds faint to you. The Winter Soldier is determinedly refusing to accelerate, even though this isn’t a map with cliffs to fall from. On the other hand, Captain America isn’t spending much time on the road at all, and you don’t think it’s intentional. After a minute, you say, “Rainbow road? Pretty sadistic, man.”

Wilson grins, but Hawkeye cackles. “We’re taking turns,” he says. “Sam is playing nice. I like a steep learning curve.”

There’s another minute of silence as you watch Rogers go back and forth over the road. It’s hypnotic. You can’t look away. You should just let this go and slip away now that you have a chance, but you can’t help asking, “Why’ve you got him on Toad? Give him one of the heavyweights, they handle better.”

More quiet. Wilson looks away from the screen, over to Rogers. “Well?”

Captain America ducks his head, but you can hear him smiling when he says, “Toad looked friendly.” You guess your silence speaks volumes, because he adds. “I’m much better than I was at first.”

You… don’t even want to know what that would look like. You can’t handle this. Maybe you never woke up this morning and this is just a very, very vivid fever dream. Makes more sense than it being real.

The Winter Soldier glances over at you. “You got a name?”

And there it is.

You decide on “N’Jadaka” just as Wilson chimes in with “Erik,” and then there’s an awkward pause from both of you.

After a moment, you make yourself shrug like it doesn’t matter. “Whichever. No big deal.”

You keep your eyes fixed on the screen, but you can see Hawkeye give you a sharp look. _“Oh,”_ he says.

And you don’t say a word, but after a second, Captain America bites. “What is it?” Nothing. “Clint?”

You’re watching the game, not looking over at all, not looking at _any_ of them. You’re not going to make it this easy to get a reaction out of you.

“Well, why don’t we start with those names. How many dual citizenship people live in this country, you think? And if this guy’s a war dog, why’s he still playing the part here and now? If he was supposed to be Erik whatever, plain simple American, why’s he giving us a Wakandan name?”

Clint Barton is a man who you know for a _fact_ has spent years as an assassin, who probably has dirtier hands than you do, who probably started killing people before you were even out of high school. Whatever moral high ground he’s about to claim over you, you’re really, really not feeling it.

He goes on, “Now let’s look at what went down last week.” He pauses and raises his voice a little, just to be _sure_ you’re listening. “In case you’re wondering, we got woken up in the middle of the night and were told we’d have to flee the country. You see, it looked like some foreigner had killed the king—our friend, for the record—and seized the throne, and our odds weren’t looking so good if we stuck around. Any of this sounding familiar?”

You give him what he’s after. You turn and tip your head back so you’re looking down at him, and you grin, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. “Sorry, I’m still not hearing what your issue is. Go ahead, ask anyone here, see if I broke even one _single_ Wakandan law.”

Wilson’s already frowning. “I don’t—”

“I walked in all polite and turned myself over to the proper authorities, gave my credentials, did it all by the books. Told T’Challa to his _face_ who I was, made my challenge. It’s my right— And he knew that too, cause he accepted. Only reason you got told a _foreigner_ seized the throne is cause the old king killed his own brother and stranded a little kid over in California, left him to come home to find his dad’s dead body. Meant he could get away with a nice pretty lie instead of bringing me home and owning up to what he _did.”_

You force yourself to stop. You’re breathing too hard and your teeth are still bared. “So have it whatever way you want. I was raised Erik Stevens, but I’ve been N’Jadaka, son of N’Jobu, since I was born, and I’ve got just as much right to that throne as your friend ever did.”

The silence feels good. You feel less than good. The anger is still burning hot in your stomach, keeping you going, but you still feel just as used up and exhausted as you have since you woke up.

The Winter Soldier— No, fuck it, you’re not treating him like he’s something that special, he’s just another guy. _Bucky Barnes_ is watching you out of the corner of his eye. He says, “Heard you tried to start a war. Heard you tried to send out shipments of high-tech weapons to other countries.”

You can feel your hand clenching into a fist at your side, but before you can say anything, Rogers cuts in with, “Who told you that?”

Barnes twitches one shoulder. “Princess Shuri. After she got me back on my feet.” He glances more directly at you, and you don’t react or turn away. “About a week ago. Seemed pretty fresh.”

Wilson’s voice is dry when he says, “Thanks for giving us the heads up.”

Barnes shrugs again. “Felt like she was telling me more than she meant to. Like I said, she seemed rattled. She’s a good kid.”

Your jaw clenches tight. _She’s my cousin,_ you don’t say. You’re so tense you feel like you could vibrate out of your skin. Captain America turns back around to face you, still holding his game controller. Over his shoulder you can see Toad driving straight into a wall, jittering along sideways. Captain America’s face is solemn and vaguely disappointed

 _I read your comics,_ you think. _I bought all the collected reprints when I was in high school, then bought digital copies so I could bring them to college._

Crazy how you’re getting to meet a classic American icon, one you loved even before he came back from the grave, one who was a goddamn _role model_ when you were trying to figure out what to do with your life. And you can already tell that your first conversation is going to be him trying to tell you off. He hasn’t said a word yet, and you’re already furious.

“Starting things off with a war?”

You bare your teeth. “Starting things off with a _revolution.”_ You glance up at the others. “That’s that, huh? One secondhand story passed along a week after the fact and you’ve made your judgment, you’re all good to go?”

“I didn’t say that,” says Captain America. Doesn’t matter, you can see him _thinking_ it. “I’m just curious. Just wondering why.”

You could just fucking cry. Here’s _Captain America_ asking you to explain race and colonialism and everything that goes along with it. It’s tragic, hilarious, infuriating, and you’ve been waiting your whole goddamn life for an opportunity like this, and of course it comes right when you’re too worn out to do anything about it. You can _talk_ about this shit, you could talk for hours if you had a listening audience, but the prospect of starting now and having to wade through all the oh-so-innocent, well-meaning confusion about what you mean about systemic oppression and cultural erasure and, and, god, _everything_ that goes into this, it doesn’t compress into a clean and simple answer.

“I’m not here to be your teacher,” you snap. “You’ve got the whole internet to ask about that. Go look up colonialism and racism and start from there.”

And— Shit. Nineteen-forties. If he’s struggling this bad with Mario Kart, does he even know what a search engine is? Whatever. You’re not backing down. You can’t _do this_ right now.

Never even mind the taste it leaves in your mouth that this is supposed to be _Captain America_ , and here you are having to explain what so many _Americans_ who look just like you have been dealing with for centuries.

But at least instead of arguing with you, he nods, slowly. “I can do that.” You start to relax, just a little, but that’s a mistake, because he follows it right up with, “But would war really be the answer?”

“Must be nice,” you say. “Must be nice getting to build your legacy on a foundation of ‘I’m Captain America, I punch nazis.’ Lots of jingoism to make it easy back then, and enough time since then to sanitize it and polish it up all pretty now. Nazis are the bad guys and America’s made of good guys. One big clean monolith, land of _equal opportunity,_ right?”

Wilson leans forward in his seat. “Erik,” he says. You don’t look at him. This isn’t what you came up here to do. You came up to see if you could find some books and talk to someone from home.

“I’m not doing this right now,” you say, more to yourself than to any of them.

Captain America says, “I’m sorry.” You wait. And then of course, of _course_ he continues, “But--”

You shut your eyes. “I’m gonna need you to consider your next words _real_ carefully. _Captain.”_

He does pause and drums his fingers on his leg. When he speaks, it’s careful and his voice is mild. “I’m asking… about the cost. Whether the lives lost would be worth it.”

Here’s familiar territory. You’re in short sleeves already and you lift your arms to show them off. “You see these scars? One for every kill. One for every time I took someone’s life, with my own two hands.” You lift the hem of your shirt to show them how far the scars go, so they _know._ “After a while, it stops being difficult. Stops being anything special.” You give all four of them a look. “Don’t any of you try to tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Wilson’s frowning. They all are. You look down as you smooth out your shirt, just a cheap excuse to look away. You can practically feel the pressure of their eyes on you still. You force something like a smile. “Going to have to charge a fee if you want to keep looking.”

Slowly, carefully, Rogers says, “You counted every one of them.”

Your head snaps up before you can pull yourself back under control. Your eyes are too— something. Your mouth. You’ve lost whatever you were going to say. You don’t know what your face is doing and they’re all _looking_ at you.

By degrees, you force yourself to relax. To _look_ relaxed. The silence is painful, but you don’t know how to break it.

Wilson takes mercy on you. He stretches and yawns and says, “I think I’m done with racing for the day. What should we—”

“Super Smash Bros.” Barton doesn’t pause for even a moment to think about the question. And he doesn’t wait for a response either before he gets up to change the cartridge.

Wilson grins. “Sounds like a plan to me.” He glances over your way. “We’ve got a strict training plan here, you know. Gotta get them through the original so we can work them up to Melee and Brawl. Not sure about the ones after that, though. You ever try those?”

You just shake your head, off-balance. There has to be an angle to this conversation. You never figured out what he was after before, either. You don’t _get_ him.

He shrugs. “Guess we’ll see how it goes. Play it by ear if nothing else comes up before then.” He hesitates, just long enough for you to notice he’s doing it. “I might be done for the day. Want a turn?”

Barton gives him a sharp look, and you can see Barnes shift in place. Rogers gives you a searching look, and fuck, he shouldn’t be asking _you,_ you’re just as lost as everyone else is.

You shake your head and manage, “Nah, I was just exploring, I oughta get back to my place.” And then you bite your tongue and curse to yourself because that was the weakest-ass excuse you’ve ever come up with.

Though Wilson lets it go. He shrugs and says, “Sounds good, then. We’re up here most days, so you know.”

At least you can just nod to that, and you turn to go, bringing up the building map on your kimoyo beads. You’re shaken enough you don’t trust yourself to completely remember how to retrace your steps.

But as you’re about to head out into the hallway, Wilson adds, “Just so you know, Steve mains Kirby.”

You freeze. You can… see it. Especially after Toad. But now you’re imagining _Captain America_ playing a video game as Kirby, and you’re back in the land of ‘too surreal to actually be happening.’

Rogers sounds suspicious when he asks, “What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing, nothing.” You can hear the way Wilson must be grinning. “Just thought he’d like to know.”

You make a break for it. You still feel frustrated and angry, even if it’s harder to hold onto the feelings when you’re this tired. But you’re also feeling better in general than you have since you woke up. You still can’t shake the image of your head of Steve Rogers, _Captain America,_ driving off the edge of rainbow road, over and over and over. And now you’re hearing that he plays as Kirby. God, you can just see him explaining himself. ‘He looked _friendly.’_ You shake your head, and finally let yourself grin. You wish you had a record of him saying that, that shit is golden.

Parts of you are wound tight in the same way that they’ve been since your plan fell apart under you, only the tension feels fresh all over again and itches under your skin. But there’s other parts of you that you hadn’t even realized were strung this tight until they snapped loose and you remembered what relaxing felt like. You just watched two genuine superheroes being _trained_ to play ancient video games. What the hell. You’re still grinning.

And you never found the library either. You’re almost back to your room, and you’re _definitely_ not going back up there right now, but… you did want books. Maybe tomorrow. You could swing up tomorrow and look for books, and maybe, _possibly,_ see if any of the others are hanging around as you go by. You think that sounds like a pretty decent plan.


End file.
